US NRC completes safety review of new reactors in South Carolina

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has completed its Final Safety Evaluation Report for Combined License s for two proposed reactors at the William States Lee site.

The report concludes there are no safety aspects that would preclude issuing the licenses for construction and operation of the proposed reactor s at the site, near Gaffney in Cherokee County, S.C.

The staff will provide the report and Final Environmental Impact Statement on the application to the Commission for the mandatory hearing phase of the licensing process. In the mandatory hearing, expected to take place later this year, the Commission will examine whether the staff’s review supports the findings necessary to issue the licenses.

Following the mandatory hearing, the Commission will vote on whether to authorize the staff to issue the licenses. Duke Energy submitted its application for the William States Lee site on Dec. 12, 2007, for permission to build and operate two AP1000 nuclear reactors at the site. The NRC certified the amended 1,100- megawatt AP1000 design in 2012.

The NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards independently reviewed those aspects of the application that concern safety. The committee provided the results of its review to the Commission on Dec. 14, 2015. The NRC completed its environmental review and issued the final impact statement for the proposed William States Lee reactor s in December 2013.